Facebook's new privacy policy conflicting with European law concerns regulators

Facebook's new privacy policy conflicting with European law concerns regulators

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Last Updated: Sat, Nov 24, 2012 07:00 hrs

Parts of Facebook's newly proposed privacy policy has concerned privacy advocates over being in conflict with European law.

It came after a key regulator moved to give users in the European Union more power to block the sharing of their data with the company's affiliates such as Instagram.

Gary T. Davis, deputy data protection commissioner in Ireland claimed that regulators alerted Facebook about the problem shortly after the company announced major changes in how it will treat users' personal data.

The proposed policy also drew criticism from American privacy advocates, who said that the changes would make more data available to advertisers without users' explicit consent, in violation of last year's consent decree between Facebook and the Federal Trade Commission, The Washington Post reports.

According to the paper, the agreement had stemmed from complaints about the company's handling of personal data.

"Facebook is not really telling users what this means and how this is going to work," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.

In Ireland, Davis expressed confidence that the company would make revisions giving European users the right to explicitly accept or reject data-sharing with affiliates such as Instagram. Facebook acquired the company for 1 billion dollars in April, but it remains a separate legal entity, the paper said.

"We've already engaged with Facebook. We expect Facebook to be reverting [to previous policies] on these issues," Davis said. (ANI)